


Maskerade

by SinisterScribe



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M, Minotaur - Freeform, OQ Smutiness, Other, Outlaw Queen - Freeform, bad influence English teachers are entirely to blame, costumes abound, education system for the win, homage to Chaucer, hungry hungry Evil Queen, kiiiinda bestiality? not at all sure, lady godiva, masquerade prompt, much sexy times, no real plot, not as cute as everybody seems to think it is, snowflakes, steak sandwiches, there's always a need for orgies, yeah - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-15
Updated: 2015-04-15
Packaged: 2018-03-23 03:46:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,955
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3753295
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SinisterScribe/pseuds/SinisterScribe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Yes, I know that's not how you spell it. It's an homage to Pratchett (RIP) so don't fucking start. </p>
<p>RIGHT! As I understand it there are a bunch of prompts for Outlaw Queen oneshots and -whilst I don't much like Robin- I had to have a go at the masquerade prompt since everyone and their dog seems to think that it's a cute little idea wherein the main characters can be cheeky and coy and have a mistaken identity fuck ignoring the fact that some of is can recognise someone from the cheekbones down. </p>
<p>ANYWAY, masquerades were banned in the 12th century for a REASON.</p>
<p>This is why.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Maskerade

**The Psychology of Masks**

 

**_3 Weeks Ago…_ **

 

“You want to what?!”

Regina turned away from her brooding gaze out of the window of the war council chamber and stared at ‘Queen’ Snow.

“What?” Snow looked a little confused. “Why shouldn’t we have a party?”

“There’s nothing wrong with having a party.” Regina snapped. “If we weren’t at _war_.”

“And whose fault is that, sister?” Grumpy sneered from his spot by the table.

Regina pointed to him without looking and snarled low in her throat.

“Stifle your tongue, midget, or you’ll swallow it before the day is out.” She focussed on Snow again. “Do you really think it’s a good idea to waste revenue and resources on a _party_ when we don’t even have enough garrison for a decent defence of the castle?”

“There’s already a shield around the castle.” Snow frowned and hunched her shoulders in a shrug. “People are scared, Regina. They need something to boost morale. Parties tend to do that. _You_ threw parties when you ruled.” _As the psychotic Evil Queen._ “You must recognise their value.”

“Okay, first of all –the shield is not nearly as impenetrable as we have made out to the citizenry and it requires a great deal of effort on my part to maintain it.”

Snow’s brow creased and Regina nearly groaned when she realised she’d just told the girl something that she apparently hadn’t realised herself but Regina had thought she’d picked up on.

Regina looked, well, rough.

She was tired. Keeping up such a massive spell as the shield, designed to fend off such a violent force as her psychotic half-sister, and the constant reconfiguration of the shield that both her paranoia and circumstance demanded was draining mentally as well as physically.

Regina slept little, ate ravenously and never quite managed to keep up with her body’s demands when it came to the energy expended with all the magic she was hurling around left right and centre.

“Secondly,” Regina spoke over Snow before she could _fuss_ , “the great unwashed shall be comforted a lot more knowing that the mad bastards in charge are plotting to slaughter the monsters and witches coming for their heads rather than offering them champagne!” Regina waved expansively at the entire ‘war council’.

A council that seemed to increasingly revolve around herself trying to stave off the inevitable ulcer that dealing with the rest of them was going to give her. Snow sat there and looked wet, Charming seemed to be a little better with the desire to stab certain green people in the face. Grumpy was just a punishment from the gods and the thief seemed to be primarily there to attempt to fish his eyeballs out of her cleavage or otherwise be uncouth and irrespective of her station and rank.

For the fifty seventh time, she reminded herself that she couldn’t kill them all.

She hadn’t quite come up with a _reason_ as to why she shouldn’t just kill them all today but she was confident she’d think of something eventually.

So she sucked in a deep breath and planted her hands on her hips.

“It’s a terrible idea.”

“I think it’s a rather good idea.” Robin disagreed. Naturally.

“You would, more guests mean more pockets to pick.” She curled her lip in disdain.

“Her majesty is right,” Robin nodded to Snow to show which majesty he meant, “people are scared. They want to laugh again. It would do more good than harm.”

“Remind me again how many war campaigns you’ve led?” Regina smiled almost sweetly at him but there were too many teeth on display.

“I fought in the wars.” Robin’s smile disappeared entirely. “I know that an army fights from its heart.”

“And marches on its stomach whilst we’re using metaphors. Speaking of, do you have any idea how _woefully_ unprepared we are for winter and how we cannot _afford_ a party.”

“We’re not throwing a festival, Regina. We’re going to have music and dancing and food. It will be about the atmosphere, not about the affluence.”

“Oh, so we should _confirm_ to other kingdoms that we’re as ragtag and poor as we seem?” Regina planted her hands on her hips. “I know you all grew up as peasants, bandits and outlaws but _some of us_ know how important appearances can be. If we throw a party anything less than absolutely fucking unbelievably fantastical as should be fitting of a kingdom ruled by the legendary Prince Charming, Snow White and their pet ‘ _dowager_ ’ queen sorceress then it shall be blood in the water to our surrounding regents.” Regina hissed and Snow blanched a little.

She knew that the dowager part of Regina’s title was _technically_ true since Snow and Charming had married and Leopold was dead but Regina had never abdicated the throne and the people referring to Snow as queen did not make it so. Snow had made it _abundantly_ clear to all who would listen that Regina should never, ever, ever, EVER, hear herself being referred to as such. Not if the offending party wanted to keep all their skin where it belonged and not cured for a new saddle for that same dowager to place on her least favourite horse.

Still, it would seem that Regina’s ears were keener than was good for the rest of them.

“You’re not our pet, Regina.” Charming drawled. “What idiot would ever believe that you were tame?”

Regina pointed viciously at Grumpy and Robin without even looking at them.

Charming huffed out a breath through his nose and looked over at his fellow men with an expression of ‘you are a disappointment to your people’.

“We have to do SOMETHING, Regina!” Snow threw up her hands. “People are miserable. Yes, you might think that you have to be hard and vicious and cruel to win against your sister and that’s a sacrifice that you’re willing to make and _we_ appreciate it,” Snow waved amongst the rest of the council, “but that’s not how the general populace feel. They’re still afraid of you, Regina.”

“My god.” Regina drawled. “Really?”

Snow scowled at the sarcasm but sucked in a rallying breath and tried again.

“My point is that they can’t be afraid all the time.”

“I’ll bet they can.” Regina raised her eyebrows and grinned. She scowled when Snow heaved a put upon sigh. “Terror motivates.”

“But it also makes people crazed.” Robin rejoined the conversation. “Crazed people cannot be predicted and we’ve got enough of that coming from the outside. Dealing with it within our borders is a problem we can live without.”

“Some of us might not.” Regina promised darkly and turned to glance out the window again.

Her skin was crawling. She felt a quiver tremor through her body. A ravenous hunger that was beginning to grow as the days went on. She bit her lip and closed her eyes for just a moment.

Gods, she was hungry.

She needed to eat. She needed to eat like she needed to breathe.

Sod the party, Regina might well singlehandedly drive them to a winter famine.

This meeting needed to end before she both killed everyone _and_ ate them.

“Fine.” Regina spun back to them. “You want a party? Go for it. Go nuts. Throw a fucking Mardi Gras. Just do NOT ask for my help. I’ll be too busy keeping us all alive.”

With that, she swept from the room, the doors flying open before her and clashing closed behind her. She headed straight for the kitchens.

There had better be her weight in protein waiting for her or –by all the gods- she _was_ going to eat someone.

 

**_One Week Ago…_ **

 

Regina prowled the corridors and avoided the bustle of the peasantry. She managed this through dint of literally snarling at anyone that got too close and deftly avoiding those that she saw coming.

As it was, she wasn’t actually in THAT much of a bad mood. Which was possibly something to do with the steak sandwich she held in both hands that was roughly the size of her own head and she’d already eaten half of it.

Granny, head cook of the kitchens, had actually hired more staff to cater for the High Queen’s appetite (Snow had made it a point to actively change Regina’s title for the peasants). Granny had –if Regina’s suspicions were correct- press ganged Ruby into hunting specifically for Regina because said High Queen’s diet was made up mostly of forest game, wild fruits, nuts and as much bread as Granny could bake.

All of that and Regina had taken to prowling the lower floors of the castle, never straying too far from the kitchens and Granny had taken to leaving entire picnics in her rooms to tide Regina over through the night.

Even then, the sign of the constant magic use were plain on the Queen.

She had lost weight, her clavicle more visible than it had been, her cheekbones harsher and her eyes darkened in a way that makeup could neither emulate nor completely hide. She was irritable –more than usual- more often than not and looked like she hadn’t slept the night through in a _while_.

But she made no complaint, ate her multiple dinners, and continued to hold the shield over the castle.

Stupidly thinking that Granny was the only one that might have noticed that the effort might well kill Regina if she wasn’t careful.

Regina was proved wrong when a voice rang throughout the corridor and ground her to a halt with a low and vicious snarl that would have driven a dragon back into its lair.

“Milady!”

Regina turned to see Robin Fucking Hood lift his arm in a wave and jog down the corridor towards her. He slowed to a walk a few metres away, having learned the hard way not to invade her personal space too quickly (Regina’s mouth quirked at the memory of her magic reacting on startled instinct and setting fire to his clothes before she’d even registered who he was…still, the way he had jumped from the second storey of the castle and managed to actually land in the horses’ water trough in the stable yard _was_ impressive).

Of course, he misread the smile and grinned toothily at her.

She scowled.

“I have been looking for you all morning.”

“Hmm, how odd, I’ve been avoiding everyone all morning.” Regina tore into her steak sandwich again.

Robin pressed his lips together and let loose a sigh through his nose.

“I do have a reason.” He defended himself.

“You _always_ have a reason and they are never valid.” Regina spun on her heel and stalked away, hoping he’d leave her alone.

Statistically, he was bound to take the hint one day and actually do it.

“Milady.”

But not today.

Regina didn’t stop or acknowledge him or even turn to him but she didn’t teleport away either in a puff of smoke.

Mainly because she didn’t have the magical muscle to spare.

“I came to give you this.”

Regina, still tearing into her sandwich, glanced sideways at him and slowed to a halt when she saw what he held. She blinked down at it and frowned. She chewed thoughtfully and studied the confection held gently in his hand for a long moment.

“What is it?”

Robin blinked, surprised at an almost civil question from her, and hurried to answer before she could get a barb in over his silence.

“It is your invitation.”

“To what?” She looked up at him, sucking her teeth a moment to work some over soft bread off the roof of her mouth.

“To the party that Snow and Charming are throwing. The one that you gave permission for.” Robin narrowed his eyes a little. “It’s all anyone has been talking about for the last fortnight.”

“I’m a dictator for life, I don’t have to listen to the song of the people.” She bared her teeth in a smile and then tore into her sandwich again. She admitted after a long moment. “It’s odd.”

“Fitting though, I thought.” Robin held up the ‘invitation’ and closer to the light coming from a window to show off the artistry of the papercraft.

It was a snowflake. A paper snowflake. Not just a flat one that children learned to make by folding paper and hacking at it with safety scissors to make lopsided and somehow always adorable patterns. No, this was a fully three dimensional crystalline construct of card that was just as delicate and intricate as a real snowflake.

“Interesting.” She allowed. “Ineffective though. It will take far too long for a herald to cry invitations to every family the origami is sent to. There’s something to be said for practicality over frivolity.”

Robin remained silent as she was leaning this way and that, not giving up her sandwich but content to let him hold up the object of her interest so long as he remained quiet and inoffensive.

“It would have been quicker to have paper invitations that might convey all the pertinent details without involving word of mouth from the courier.” Regina tilted her head back and gulped down the last of her sandwich with a somewhat alarming similarity to a dragon swallowing a whole deer down its gullet. She sucked her thumb for a moment in a manner that Robin found FAR too distracting and then hummed deep in her throat. “Still, not bad. Impressive but cheap. Two of my favourite things.”

“You wouldn’t know it to look at you.” Robin murmured, doing plenty of just that, and then hurried to distract her when she frowned up at him. Despite her dabbing her tongue against her fingers in a manner that made him incredibly jealous of her hand. “They are simply couriered, no heralds required.”

She hummed deep in her throat. Like a lioness trying to decide if she was hungry enough to pounce and kill the idiot prey that had wandered within reach.

“May I?” Robin held up the snowflake to the light and leaned as if to step closer to her.

She looked up at him, her cheeks hollowing as she sucked the grease of the steak sandwich from her thumb just to be sure she hadn’t missed any the first time, but she didn’t say no.

Robin stepped closely behind her, his arm stretching around her shoulder and his chin nearly coming down on top of the silk of her dress over her shoulder. If he had dared to look down he’d have seen _right_ down her dress –and the temptation was certainly there- but he focussed instead on trying to match his eye line to hers.

He heard her inhale deeply and valiantly kept his gaze on the damn snowflake despite how much he wanted to study what the movement did to her delightful self. He cleared his throat but his voice was still hoarse when he spoke.

“See?” He was aware of her look, how could he not be, but he felt the weight of her regard shift from his face to the delicate paper structure he held in his hand.

He turned it slowly in the light and he heard her hum in interest, straightening up, her back flush against his chest. She didn’t seem to notice, tilting her head instead and her cheek so close to his that she must have surely been aware of his heat for every part of him that came to within three inches of her was on fire.

Thankfully not literally this time.

“Huh.” She smiled softly. “Clever.”

She looked more closely at the snowflake as he slowly rotated it and a pattern began to emerge. She was perfectly capable of reading it but she let the thief tell her what it said anyway.

“To Her Majesty High Queen Regina, Scourge of the Enchanted Forest and Captain of the Blackguard.” He had expected her to take offence to the wording but it would seem that Snow certainly knew Regina better than he did because the High Queen simply smiled a pleased smile. As if she was glad that _somebody_ remembered that she had claws. “You are cordially invited to attend the masquerade of Queen Snow White and King David. Held on the last day of harvest. Come as you are not.”

Regina blinked, her lips twitched.

“A masquerade?” She twisted to look at him, her smirk broadening into a grin. He couldn’t help but smile in return. “She’s throwing a masquerade?”

“She said it was something similar to a thing called Halloween from the land without magic.”

Regina coughed a laugh and lifted her hand to stifle it. She pressed her lips together but couldn’t stop the low and throaty chuckle that seemed to thread a cord clean through him and strum a heat through his entire body.

“Of course she would think that.” Regina cleared her throat and pressed her knuckles to her mouth again. She chuckled into her hand and then shook it off. “Did she not realise that masquerades were…out of fashion?”

There was a terribly strangled kind of innocence to her voice.

“She said that she thought it might be fun.”

“Oh, I think it shall.” Regina ran her tongue over her teeth and Robin had a fleeting wish to be the thing she hungered for next.

She smiled for a moment and then pressed her lips together.

“Tell Snow that I accept.”

“You what?” Robin’s brows rose.

He’d drawn the short straw as the person that had to deliver the invitation to Regina. He had argued that Ruby should go since she had the speed to get away safely should Regina’s feelings about the party continue to echo those at the meeting about it. Still, due to the lack of lengthy straws, Robin had been dispatched to complete the task and had done so with a wary caution that he had reserved for breaking into highly dangerous locations like the Dark One’s castle.

“Tell her. I accept. Her invitation.” Regina’s hands found the slim cinch of her waist and that _smirk_ hung around her mouth still.

“Uh…good.” Robin felt like he’d missed something. “I’m sure she shall be pleased.”

“Hmm.” Regina’s smirk broadened to a grin and then a truly dazzling smile and she bit her lip as if to stop it from cracking her face in half. She shooed at him with one hand. “Run along then, Snow will want her answer I’m sure.”

Robin hesitated a moment and then nodded. He ducked his head in a bow.

“As you wish, milady.” He spun on his heel and strode down the corridor and away from her.

She managed to hold in her laughter until he rounded the corridor and it was such a shock to him that he stopped dead.

He was surprised to note that it wasn’t a cackle at all, but a deep throated infectious laugh that brought an involuntary grin to his mouth.

Her laughter echoed and faded as she walked away, though it carried on for quite some time.

It wasn’t until he could no longer hear it at all that his own smile slipped away and realised that if _Regina_ was laughing about something…

It probably wasn’t going to be very funny for the rest of them.        

  

  ** _Last Night…_**

 

“I thought you said she would come.” Snow, in her angel costume, more feathers framing her eyes in a mask, turned to Robin.

“She told me she would, majesty.” Robin shrugged his shoulders and Charming frowned, not at all sure how he felt about a half-naked Robin standing eye to pectoral with his wife.

David had come as Jack Skellington. A black pinstripe suit with a ridiculous collar and some judicious face paint being as far as his costuming skills extended but Robin had apparently gone all out.

He’d come as a minotaur.

A bull mask covered his head in a cowl with two huge curling horns curving around his head into razor sharp looking points. The bull’s ears were pulled back in anger, the eyes of the mask made of red glass that glinted alarmingly in the candlelight of the great hall. The muzzle of the bull hung over the top half of Robin’s face and Charming sensed the other man had relatively little vision from in there, perhaps seeing out of the mask’s nostrils? But surely the gold ring there would prevent him seeing.

Either way, the lower half of his face and neck was painted black to match the glossy pelt of the mask and the mantle of fur that covered his shoulders to give him a bullish neck. He wore little else save for a pair of black glossy furred breeches with a tail that swung from the back.

He was also smeared in something that glittered.

When Charming had asked where Robin had got the costume, the only reply he’d been given was a single stony word.

Charming had said nothing more about the costume and resigned himself to mingling with a man badly in need of a shirt.

The doors to the great hall swung open on a gust of magic and David nearly choked on his wine when he saw Regina make her grand entrance to the party. He rapidly revised his opinion on what exactly was indecent in public when Regina revealed her costume.

Or lack thereof.

Regina rode into the great hall on a white stallion (Charming’s own horse if he wasn’t mistaken) and smirked at the guests as they fell silent.

Regina was dressed (or not) as Lady Godiva.

Horns came into David’s vision as Robin leaned closer to him.

“I’m still awake, yes?”

“Oh, yep, for sure. Regina is definitely…here.” Charming trailed off when he felt Snow’s glare on the side of his head. He turned to her and pasted on his trademark smile. “More wine? I’ll go get some.”

He didn’t wait for an answer, taking her still full goblet of wine and disappearing himself to find something stronger.

Regina rode right into the middle of the hall before reining her borrowed horse in to a halt and waiting expectantly.

Snow rolled her eyes and shoved Robin forward.

“Ah, milady, might I…?” Robin held up his hands and Regina looked down at him from behind her mask, her eyes glittering and then dropped the reins and leaned down to be helped from the back of her horse.

A servant dressed as a smurf hurried forward to take the horse and lead him away though the stallion was sure to eat half a tray of cheesepuffs on its way out the door.

Robin set Regina down on the floor and tried not to notice exactly how naked she was.

As in…a lot.

She wore her hair down, which seemed to be the only thing preserving whichever scant modesty it was that she cared for. Her mask was that rain of diamonds across her brow and cheeks though her cheeks were flushed with makeup, her eyes lined with kohl with a sparingly sultry smoke hue and her lips were a different red to her usual colour.

Robin quite imagined that was what her lips would look like should they be bruised with kisses.

Robin bit his black painted lip beneath the shadow of his mask and tried very hard not to groan.

The hair wasn’t helping. It was _such_ a tease. It was either a wig or she had grown it magically to fall almost to mid-thigh and –whilst she moved entirely freely- it always seemed to be _just_ in the way of what he most wanted to see. More diamonds dusted her skin here and there and it gave the impression that she was glistening with sweat. That and the makeup and the tangle of her hair…wicked, _wicked_ , woman.

Regina smirked up at him, her eyebrow arching behind her mask and he belatedly realised that he was still holding into her.

Robin snatched his hands away from her and she hummed something like a chuckle before turning to Snow.

“Is this a party or are we all posing for a portrait?” Regina didn’t shout but her voice carried and the musicians hurriedly struck up once more and a murmur of conversation raced around the room.

“Regina!” Snow cut herself off and didn’t know whether to laugh or scold. “What are you supposed to be?”

“Naked, mostly.” Regina smirked at Charming when he reappeared with more wine. “For me? How thoughtful.”

She relieved him of the cup of wine and drank deeply.

“The invitation said ‘come as you aren’t’ not ‘clothes aren’t required’.”

“Well I wasn’t naked when I got the invitation, you can ask the talkative one in the cattle costume.” Regina jerked her head at Robin the minotaur, her hair swishing over her body and noticing everyone else noticing it with a hopeful gleam in their eyes.

She’d been here all of five minutes and she was already feeling _much_ better.

She inhaled deeply, her hair sliding over her skin and she was pretty sure she heard someone groan somewhere. There was a slap and Regina grinned.

“Is there food? I’m _ravenous_.”

“Robin, why don’t you take Regina to the buffet table?” Snow asked with a brittle smile.

“Uh, yes, of course, uh, milady?” Robin twisted, waving his hand before him and Regina smirked preceding him towards the table since she knew exactly where it was.

She heard Snow’s hand connecting with the back of Charming’s head and she couldn’t help but chuckle.

This was going to be _fun_.

 

**_Later…_ **

 

Regina sat in the largest throne of the great hall, the throne of the high queen, and tried not to look as high as she felt.

Oh _yes_ , all that bawdy lust in the air was _pouring_ into her.

Better than any steak sandwich, better than sleeping for a week, better than even dropping the spell that shielded the entire castle. The energy that engulfed the entire room swirled around the heads of the guests, getting them drunker, loosening their already flimsy inhibitions. The food and wine had been in full flow for hours, the children all packed off to bed and now things were _really_ heating up.

Regina let her eyes flutter closed and inhaled deeply. The pheromones, the intent, the lust, all of it. She took it all in.

The only thing better would be to have it be her own pheromones, her own intent, her own lust…but she had no desire to take a lover.

Well, she did, she very much did, entirely physically, mentally was another matter entirely.

She couldn’t be doing with _feelings._

So no nookie for her.

She’d just have to make do with the opiate effect of the lusty intentions of three hundred people pouring into her magical senses like a jug of tequila.

Good grief, only a few of the guests had slunk off for their own private moments and she was already drunk on the fumes. What was it going to be like when the masks took over entirely and things became truly…interesting?

“Milady, what are you doing?”

Regina opened her eyes, glassy with lust and a simmering sensuality that wasn’t entirely her own.

“Hmm?”

Robin stood three steps down from her throne, that thick mantle of fur making his broad shoulders seem huge. The glossy fur of his breeches made her fingers itch to stroke through it and –whilst she knew that it was only a mask- she looked into the bull’s red eyes when he spoke.

“There is something wrong. With the people. They are acting…oddly.” Robin shifted uncomfortably.

It was hot now, in the hall. The press of so many bodies, dancing, drinking, brushing against one another…Robin shook off the spell and focussed on the High Queen once more.

The High Queen who looked far too pleased with herself to be innocent in all this.

“Are they?” She let her head rock to the side and looked at him drunkenly.

“What have you done?”

She chuckled, deep and throaty, her breasts bouncing deliciously with the movement, her hair sliding and tumbling across her chest until he thought he saw the darker shadow of a nipple through the glossy brown waves.

Robin growled low in his throat and was up another step before he could stop himself. He bared his teeth and her languid gaze dropped from the red eyes of the bull to the slash of white in the dark paint of his face. Her smile grew to a lazy grin of salacious proportions.

“I haven’t done anything.” She lifted a hand, spreading her fingers wide. “Snow was the one that wanted the masquerade.”

“And you laughed, when you received the invitation, you knew it to be a fun revelry. Amusing. For you at least.” Robin prowled up another step, looming over her, his shadow blocking the light from finding her.

He must look huge, he thought, all horns and shoulders and dark, dark, fur. His shadow certainly seemed larger than it usually was.

She inhaled deeply and her eyes fluttered closed.

“You smell positively _edible_.” She nearly groaned. Her eyes snapped open and she smirked again. “As to your accusations, however, this is no doing of mine. There is a _reason_ that masquerades were banned.”

“And what is that?” Robin took another step closer to her and she lifted one foot and set her toes to his navel, grinding him to a halt.

“The psychology of masks,” she spoke quietly but he heard her perfectly even over the raucous sounds of the party and the thumping music, “come as you aren’t. Be as you’re not. Be the mask. Let it do the acting. Let it take the blame. Put on another face to act as you truly wish to act.”

“No magic?”

“Nothing more than is in everyone’s darker thoughts.” She smiled.

“No. You’ve done something. People are out of control.”

“I’ve done nothing. It’s all the masks.”

“Then why aren’t you in its thrall? Whatever this is.”

“Because I’m always wearing a mask, Tauro.” She grinned, showing all her teeth.

“That’s bollocks.”

“Look at what you’re doing, Tauro.” Regina smirked. “Look at where your hand is.”

Robin glanced down and snatched his hand away when he found that he had leaned forward to brace on hand on the arm of the throne and span her thigh with the other. As if he had been about to uncross her legs and spread them for him.

Robin let loose a snorting breath, his chest heaving and all he could smell was her.

“This has to be magic.” He shook his head, the sharp horns zinging close enough to her to ruffle her hair. “I am not a cur who would take an unwilling woman.”

“Indeed not.” Her toes slid down over his front again, past his navel to the low hem of his fur trousers and lower to the hardening bulge behind the laces. “Would you be a cur that would take a willing one?”

The bull’s head snapped up and the red eyes glinted. Regina bit her lip and braced herself when he lunged at her. His hands clapped down on the arms of the throne and she watched the muscles that roped his frame quiver with the urge to act. Sweat slithered down over his pectoral to his nipple and she reached out calmly, catching the bead on her finger and drawing it to her mouth.

She licked the salt of him from her skin and shivered a little at the taste. So intense, so male. Of forest and fields and leather and wild and _gods_ she wanted him like she wanted her next breath.

“This is not magic?” His voice was a low growl, his red eyes glinting.

“Not from me.” Regina shook her head. “Granny might have spiked the punch but that was no doing of mine.”

“This is…me? This is me wanting you?”

“Perhaps it’s the mask.” She smirked wickedly.

He shook his head sharply, horns raking the air. Trying to clear his head. It didn’t work.

“You have bewitched me.” He growled.

Her face lost all trace of good humour.

“I am a _sorceress_.” She bit out and stood, forcing him to release the arms of the throne and step back from her. “The word you are looking for is ‘ensorcelled’.”

“Milady…”

“You were supposed to come as you were not, thief. I suppose that it would have been too much to hope that you might appear as a creature with the common decency not to insult the woman that helps keep your _son_ safe at night.”

She spun on her heel a little drunkenly and clattered down the stairs. She slipped through the crowds, weaving a little whenever she passed too close to a particularly amorous couple.

Regina swept aside a tapestry and hurled open a lesser known door that exited the hall. She walked with the exaggerated manner of someone who was not drunk –honestly- and carefully tackled one step after the other until she reached the second floor. She stepped out into a moonlit hallway and her heels clunked on the rug.

She very nearly shrieked when his arm came around her waist from behind.

She turned, magic sparking, and he caught her wrist in one large hand with a gentle strength that caused her to nip her lip between her teeth.

The bull loomed over her, sharp horns glinting in the moonlight, red eyes gleaming. A huff of breath was hot on her neck and he made a strange rumbling sound that lowed from deep in his chest and sent heat spearing clean through her.

“If this is not magic, I do not know what is.” His hand slid beneath her hair, the calluses on his palm sliding over the smooth skin of her back.

“Will that make you feel better? To have an excuse for wanting to fuck the Evil Queen?” She bit at him.

Impressive bulge behind his furred breeches or no, she had her pride. One of the few things she did have left. Yes, she was drunk on the fumes from the party but she’d not spread her legs just for a man that dared to touch her. There had been _plenty_ of men that had panted after her in the past, just because this one was too much of an idiot to realise that he was about to lose his hand was none of her affair.

“I need no excuse. You are a compelling woman that has drawn me in as a moth to the flame since the moment I first clapped eyes on you. I know little of you, milady, but I know you’ve been running yourself into the ground to keep us safe. I fought to have this party so that you might benefit from it too and you have.” He seethed in a deep breath and tried to control himself. “Good thing I did. You haven’t looked so healthy since before you raised the shield.”

“I was fine. I could hold it.” She yanked on his grip on her wrist, tried to twist from his hold, but he drew her closer. His hot chest pressing against hers. She remembered the musk salt taste of his sweat and she wanted to taste again.

She wanted to taste every part of him.

“You were not fine.” He loomed over her.

She wore high heels – _only_ heels- five inches, but he still towered over her. Those red eyes glared down at her and those sharp horns seemed fixed on her in an entirely too dangerous manner. His shoulders were broad and hard beneath her flexing fingers, his fur soft and smooth.

Regina felt heat pool low in her belly and was almost certain that she was beginning to drip.

“I’m stronger than I look.” She swallowed hard.

She’d not give in. Not just because she was drunk and horny (hah!) and he was there.

A moment’s satisfaction, a night’s satiation, would not be worth the aggravation his smug self would bring her in the future.

Now, if her body could just get the fucking memo, she’d be golden.

“That you are.” His hand rubbed soothing circles on her lower back, nudging her gently towards him until she was flush against him with only the silky length of her hair keeping them apart. “My point is that you needn’t carry the weight alone. Tell me what I may do to help, milady. Tell me and it is done.”

She was breathing hard, her breath coming in short pants. Her face suddenly buried in the bull’s neck and a rough stubble of fur unlike the silky softness of his shoulders and head grazed her cheek. Hot lips nipped along the line of her jaw and she belatedly realised there was a man under the mask.

“Do you want me to fuck you?”

Regina’s back arched and she groaned a desperate sound from deep in her throat.

“It would help, wouldn’t it? That’s why you’re drunk. Not the wine, I warrant you can drink like a pirate, but the lust in the air. You need a good, hard, fuck, don’t you?”

Regina pressed her lips together and vowed not to answer him but her whimper of frustration was apparently enough.

“Has it been a while, milady? Do you ache for a man between your legs? Do you want my cock filling you? Over and over and over.” His teeth raked down her neck, his tongue licking back up and the bull nuzzled her hair and ear.

She swallowed audibly, biting her lip so as not to give in to him.

“I came tonight as a beast, milady. Half man and half animal. A stud to cover you to completion as many times as you desire or need. In the morning I shall be a man with –despite your beliefs- enough honour to ensure what occurs between us remains exactly that. Between you and I.” He took her hand, dragging it down over the hot skin of his chest and stomach to the sleek fur over his hips and between his legs. He groaned when she curled her fingers around the bulge of his cock without prompting.

“I beg that you let me, milady. Let me help you. Let me fuck you.” His hips rocked into the pressure of her hand sliding up and down against his aching cock.

“I would not be gentle.” She gasped. “I cannot be gentle.”

“You need not be gentle with a beast.”

She bit her lip and the sight made him groan.

“I shall not be easily sated. My appetite has been building for _months_. You will likely find yourself in my clutches all night.”

“Your cunt clutching around my cock? One night shall not be enough. I can rise to your occasion whenever you ask it of me, milady. I ask only for the chance to prove myself.”

She blinked and seemed to sober a little. Her hand lifted from his cock and she reached up, tilting the mask back so that she might look him in the eye.

“Why?”

“Because of the mask.”

She stiffened and made to pull away but he held her closer.

“Because your mask is gone tonight, milady. Everyone else has donned one and you have let yours fall away. You are… _so_ beautiful. So in need of companionship and comfort and if the only way I can be close to you is to take you to bed and make you scream for me than that is what I shall take. I offer my whole self to you, milady Regina, if every single part of me is required to complete you for even a day, you may have every brick that builds me.”

“I…” Regina should have pushed him away. She should have gone to the balcony around the great hall and absorbed all the energy she could from the still partying guests. She should have stayed strong and chased him off.

But he was right.

The mask was gone and there was nothing between them anymore. Not his wit or smarm and not her sneer and snarl.

She ran her tongue over her teeth and promised him in a low voice.

“All night, Tauro. You had best keep your word.”

Then she took the bull by the horns and dragged his mouth down on hers.

He gave that same low groan of sound that rumbled from deep in his chest and both arms came about her in a crushing embrace. He kissed her furiously, all lips and tongue and teeth and animal ferocity.

She was surprised when he tumbled her to the floor, careful to keep her skull from rapping off the flagstones, but she didn’t fight him one bit. She relaxed the enchantment on her hair that meant it was constantly in the way of what he wanted most and he swept it away from her skin, groaning into her when his suspicions were confirmed.

“You’re actually bloody naked under this.” He bit at her chin and all the way down her neck. The bull’s nose ring dragged cold down over her cheek and lips. She clutched at his glossy furred shoulders and he rumbled a low swell of a sound. “You’re so soft. So sleek.”

His hands were all over her, the fur over his hips and thighs stroking between her legs and she ground up against the velvet hardness of him. She arched her back and gasped when his mouth lowered further and he took a nipple in his mouth. Sucking greedily. From the whole areola drawing up to flick across the stiffened peak that stabbed against his tongue. His fingers plucked her other nipple, drawing that to a tightened tip and then switching his hot mouth to that one.

The bull nuzzled in her throat and her hands travelled over the ridge of his brow, tugging on his ears, stroking his horns and digging her nails into the corded muscles of his thick neck and back. She shivered at the liquid steel strength there and she wanted more. 

She was dripping for him. Her cunt creaming. She’d never been so turned on in her life. Never been so desirous of a cock between her legs. Not once. She wanted him like she’d never wanted anything and –by all the gods- he’d better come through on his promise to deliver her _everything_ she wanted.

To that end, Regina slid her hands down over his back to his hips and the low hem of his breeches. She couldn’t seem to get her fingernails under the waistband to draw them down. The breeches seemed to have blended with him, truly turning him bestial. She growled in frustration and her grasping fingers rounded his body to attempt to find the laces that would bar his cock from her.

No such thing.

Her breath caught and he groaned around her breast when her hand encountered velvet steel cock rather than hateful laces tying his breeches closed. She eagerly clutched him in her hand, exploring the full length of him from the dripping head of his cock down the vein roped shaft to the knotted base. Her hand travelled lower still and gently caged the heavy weight of his balls, rolling them between her fingers in a move that caused his cock to jump and then slap against her belly.

His hand abandoned her breast, when her fingers around his balls diverted higher brain function, and his fingers delved between her legs. She was hot and slippery and sopping for him. He groaned and slid one finger in, just to get her used to the sense of fullness if it really had been a while, but the way her cunt clenched around that one finger evaporated any chivalry the bull mask might have let him keep.

He growled, rearing up over her, his horned shadow falling dark over the silver moonlight that painted her. He took her thighs in his hands and spread them wide. He took his time looking over her, red eyes glittering and then toppled over her. His mouth crushed against hers in a brutal kiss and his cock plunged into her in a single lunge.

She _screamed_ into his mouth but he didn’t stop. He couldn’t stop. She was so tight and wet and he needed this as much as she did. He did not go easy on her. Not even when the first thrust didn’t even manage to sink his full length into her. He worked himself deeper with insistent thrusts. Grinding deeper into her, demanding that she take all of him.

Normally he would have been horrified and perhaps in the morning he would blame the mask but right now all he wanted was to be balls deep in her and have her come shivering all over his cock.

Regina bit him hard on the shoulders and chest. She raked her nails over his back as fiercely as if he had been whipped, albeit with a similar pattern. Her legs were scissored so tight about his hips that she knew they would both have bruises come morning.

She didn’t care.

She rolled her hips up to meet his brutal thrusts. Opened herself to him as much as she could and endured the animal pounding he subjected her to.

Oh _yes,_ this was exactly what she wanted. This was what she needed. She wanted to feel him _for days_. She wanted to be able to savour him for weeks. She wanted him so deep that he would become part of her and never quite leave her.

Those thoughts might have terrified her had she been sober but she was high and she was horny and he was giving her all the right strokes to drive her wild.

He wasn’t caressing her anymore. He wasn’t gentle. His hands fisted in the rug beneath them and he focussed all of his energy into slamming his cock in and out of her as hard as he could.

She clutched at his shoulders to keep from simply being slid away from him, her legs wrapped tight around his hips and the bull’s red eyes glinting as he lowered his head, snout snuffling into her hair even as Robin’s lips closed over her own. He kissed her deeply, his broad tongue driving into her mouth and towards her throat. She kissed him back with as much ferocity and revelled in the knowledge that he wanted every part of him that would fit inside her.

He loomed higher over her, rumbling groaning sounds when her nails dragged furrows down his back, and the change in angle had his hammering cock punch into that sweet spot that burst white fire behind her eyes and –as easily as that- she was bucking and screaming beneath him in the throes of the most intense orgasm she’d ever had.

She raked at him with her nails, bit him until she tasted blood and pounded her fists against his back. Her cries echoed up and down the corridors, the undertone of his grunts and groans growing louder until he threw back his head and bellowed as he came.

His cock swelled inside her, filling her completely until he was _just_ too big for her to handle, and he came in long draining jets. She could feel the spurts his seed splash inside her, filling her as his balls emptied into her. He gripped her hips and kept pushing into her. The wet suck of her cunt milking him dry until he thought she might suck his soul out too but he didn’t stop.

His thrusts slowed, rocking in and out of her in gentler strokes. She shivered around him, aftershocks wracking her small frame and tightening her already clutching cunt around him further.

He found it ridiculously easy to stay hard. He had made a promise after all.

She rocked up against him, insidious little rolls of her hips welcoming him deeper once more and he grinned, a slash of white amongst the black of the bull.

She growled her displeasure when he pulled out, a gush of semen dripping from her tight cunt.

She wasn’t given the chance to complain about his absence from her body. He flipped her onto her front and hauled her up onto her knees. He nudged her legs apart with sharp butts of his knee. She chuckled, backing up against him even as his hard cock lunged back inside her.

She hissed when he sank all the way in this time, her body more than ready for him, and she was barely aware of his hands gathering up her hair until he twisted it into a rope and coiled it around his wrist. She gasped when he pulled suddenly, forcing her spine to dip and rock her hips back further into his punishing thrusts. He gave a sudden heft that hit _that_ spot and shot a shock of shivering heat up her spine making her skin tingle from her fingertips to her toes.

“Oh gods!”

“The gods cannot hear you, milady.” He growled in her ear, the bull’s sleek furred cheek brushing against her temple. “Perhaps you should have thought about how messing with the bull would get you the horns, hmm?” He grunted and shoved that brutal length of him into her again, enjoying her whimper.

“Horns. Plural.” She gasped and grinned. “Promises, promises.”

“I assure you, I can go twice as long as any other man.”

“What a talent. Worth your weight in gold –mmf!- if you can live up to it.” She gasped when he hammered her with another deep thrust amongst smaller rocking digs of his cock inside her.

 “It is. I doubt you’d want me squandering such a gift on someone else.”

She gave a low growl of agreement.

“What do you say then?” He hammered a deep thrust into her again that flashed stars in her eyes. “Am I to be yours? Your consort? Yours alone as you shall be mine. Exclusively.”

He knew he was pushing it but he had wanted her for so long and he’d never been the type for meaningless sex. He was going to have her by hook or crook, he was going to have her and keep her.

He was not above bribery and blackmail to get her either.

“Answer me, milady, or I may not feel wanted.” He ground his cock in to the hilt and then a heft more to make her gasp again. “No man wants to be where he is not wanted.” He retreated until only the tip of his cock remained inside her and he did not slide home again.

She whimpered when she tried to back up onto him and he clutched her hips to hold her still.

“Decide.”

She moaned and writhed on the tip of his dick. He hissed in a breath and wanted nothing more than to be balls deep in her again but he withstood her temptation.

“Deci-ide.” He taunted her and twisted his hips so that the tip of his cock squirmed inside her.

“Gods, yes!” She gasped and was rewarded with his entire length spearing into her again. She moaned and the words spilled from her seemingly against her will. “Yes. You’re mine. My consort. For no other. _Mine._ ”

The bull grumbled over her again, his snout brushing her hair and a stinging bite being branded onto her shoulder to seal the deal.

“Mine.” He rumbled in agreement.

And then he set to _really_ fucking her.

 

**_Now…_**  

 

Regina stretched and yawned as she woke.

She felt…replete.

She gave a slow smile and basked in the feeling, sinking deeper into the mound of plush pillows that seemed to always migrate across her bed of a night. Her arms were thrown up over her head, her back arched over a pillow and she rubbed her legs together to savour the sweet ache left behind after last night’s shenanigans.

Her eyes snapped open when she remembered what said shenanigans had entailed exactly and jerked back deeper into the cushions when she found the man himself looming over her, propped up on one elbow.

“Good morning.” He grinned at her and bit into the slice of apple that had been piled onto his breakfast platter.

He offered her a slice too and she gingerly took it from him with her teeth to crunch it thoughtfully. Trying to remember _exactly_ what she agreed to the night before whilst writhing on the end of his cock like some whore.

Well, no, whores tended to be a bit more professional than that and act with a little more decorum than a bitch in heat. Regina flushed a little at the memories of the things she’d done and had done to her last night. She’d never…wow. This man certainly brought out the beast in her.

“You’re filthy.” He fed her another slice of apple with a smirk.

“You are…not.” Regina sidled into a more upright position and viciously punched some pillows into shape so that she might rest her aching self against them.

It was true. She was streaked  in the black paint that had darkened his face the night before, the stickiness of her own make up, the dried tightness of his saliva on her skin and the _mess_ of semen that seemed to have marked every part of her worth having. She was also covered in bruises and bites though she knew she had marked Robin more fiercely than he had her.

That would be the chivalrous nobleman in him.

Glancing about the bed with the ripped sheets, suspicious stains and spots of blood from her bites and scratches that she had bloodied him with…oh dear.

“I had a peasant’s bath and went to see Roland. I returned so that I might bathe with you.”

“Oh, you did, did you?” Regina licked her lips and tried to remember that she was a queen and she did _not_ want to crawl under that shirt with him and suck on the cord of his neck because…because…she’d think of something.

“Indeed. It’s part of my duties.”

“Due…tees?” Regina went a little cold.

“Aye.” Robin looked smugly pleased with himself. “I’ve been reading.”

Regina’s eyes widened when he hefted an old scroll and furled it out over the bed and cross her lap. She knew that scroll, she had been coroneted to that scroll and had been required to learn the damn thing by heart so that she could recite a passage at random and prove her right to rule or some such horseshit.

“Where is it…? Ah, here we are ‘ _Tis a consort’s duty and right to call upon their monarch when it is evident that the Regent in question is in need of satiation be it of the body or the mind. A consort must see to the needs of their regent even if they’re being a hard headed sorceress intent on working herself to an early grave_ ’.”

“It does NOT say that!” She glared at him.

“Does too, right there.” Robin twisted the scroll gently so as to not rip the parchment and showed her the paragraph in question. Her jaw clenched when she saw that some annotations and scoring outs had gone on with red ink.

“It doesn’t count if you edit it.” She folded her arms over her chest and belatedly realised she was naked. She thought about hauling the sheets up over herself but that was sort of like bolting the barn door after the horse is in the next county.

“Ahem,” Robin waggled his brows at her and turned back to his precious scroll, “whiiich bit was that…? Ah, ‘ _Said consort is tasked with the serenity of their regent. To keep them from ill thought action made in the heat of the moment that may hurt themselves and therefore the kingdom or take action that might lead to a decline in the kingdom’s prosperity.’_ ” Robin shot her a meaningful look. “It goes on to say; ‘ _As such, a consort must be of sound judgement, able body and fearless in the face of their regent’s wrath.’_ I think I have proved by now that my body is most certainly able and YOU have proved that you need steering away from such ill thought action as killing yourself to keep your sister at bay.”

“You are NOT my consort.” Regina’s jaw clenched. “Leopold had that part of the codex stricken from the oath of regency because –I can only assume- he didn’t want either of his wives to have any fucking fun. Literally.”

“’ _A consort will always be required of a regent without a spouse, this is irrefutable and cannot be denied by any king or queen so long as there is a kingdom to serve.’”_

Regina growled wordlessly.

“Don’t be like that. This was your idea.”

“I don’t care what you say or what part of that musty old thing you read, you are NOT my consort and you aren’t in a position to ‘call upon’ me for anything. It’s an ancient concept of bound servitude that I wouldn’t entertain even if I knew how to go about the rite.”

“Hmm.” Robin pressed his lips together and pretended to think about it. He held up a finger. “I am certain there is something in here about how one becomes a consort.”

Regina narrowed her eyes at him as he pored over the text with exaggerated care.

“Ah-hah! ‘ _Once the regent has chosen their consort and been chosen by them, the bond is simply forged. A regent must gift their consort and thrice demand it of them that they belong to the bearer of the crown. When the consort accepts, they are bound. It is a subtle magic and an old one, but a bond as fierce as any other is cemented in that acceptance.’_ Now,” Robin thought hard, “correct me if I’m wrong, but I _do_ believe you said something along the lines of ‘You’re mine. My consort. For no other. _Mine._ ’ I did like that last part, you growl beautifully when you feel truly possessive of something…or someone.”

“Well, I haven’t given you anything other than the chance to rut me like a bitch in heat so…”

“Do NOT speak of yourself in such a manner.” Robin clipped at her with a cold severity. “You are not a thing to me. You are a person and –I hope- one day a friend. I will not allow you to loathe yourself when there is so much to celebrate in.”

“You don’t even know me!” Regina snapped. “Nor are you in a position to ‘allow’ me to do anything.”

“We already had this talk about me being your consort and trumping your royalness when you need it.”

“And what gives you the right to tell me what I do and do not need?!”

“You did.” Robin smirked at her.

“I most certainly did not!”

“Well, you declared –rather loudly in fact- that I was to be yours. You did that three times.”

“Ah,” Regina smirked, “but I didn’t give you a gift.”

Robin cleared his throat and reached up casually to scratch at the stubble on his chin. Regina’s eyes went wide and her mouth dropped open when she saw the thick band of silver around his wrist. A broad cuff intricately designed to show a ruby sculpted to resemble an enchanted heart and twin golden arrows crossed behind it. Fine etchings depicted the forest in the background but it still somehow managed to be masculine and fit him well.

It suited him.

As she had known it would when she conjured it for him last night and had manacled it around his wrist in another fit of possessiveness. She turned her face away from him, suddenly ashamed.

“Hey, what’s this?” Robin ducked his head and leaned over so that he could see her face again. “What’s wrong?”

“I release you of your bond. I should never have demanded it of you, no matter how unwittingly, you are not something I may own.”

“I know that.” Robin sat up and swung his legs around so that one of them was lain over both of hers. “I wanted this, Regina,” he tried her name to see how she would react and the fact that she didn’t heartened him, “why do you think I came prepared with my binding contract?” He waggled the scroll at her.

“I’ve had a slave for a lover before. I’ll not do it again.”

“This is not a manacle.” Robin showed her the cuff. “It is a sign of respect and trust. I respect you enough to wear it and you trust me enough to give me the right and the power to steer you away from your darker paths. It simply means that you recognise that you may need help in the future to remind yourself of what you are fighting for and not simply that you must fight. This bond does not give me power over you. It only means that mine is the voice that you will hear first. It is your choice to take my advice or not.”

“Why?” She demanded. “Why trick me into this?”

“Because I thought you needed a friend. One you would pay attention to and not dismiss out of hand…and because I realised that food was not sustaining you under the strain of your magic so I was faced with the choice of finding some way to bolster your magic or to convince you to find another way to shield the castle. Now, I am _all_ for bolstering you any which way you desire three times a day every day. More if you’ll let me…but if you want me to help you to find another spell and trawl through entire libraries of books in that search then I shall do that also. I am beginning to know you, Regina. I quite believe running a kingdom singlehandedly the first time around nearly destroyed you. I have no desire to see that happen to the woman before me.”

“The woman covered in soot and dried semen?” She arched a brow at him and he grinned.

“The woman I have marked as mine?”

She scowled at him and his grin broadened into a smile.

“You’re despicable. And underhanded. And pig-headed. And you deserve a good kicking.”

“All true.” Robin nodded. “But still your consort and still determined to keep you well despite wanting to mangle Snow, Charming, the dwarf and your sister.”

Regina looked away from him again and he amused himself with rolling the scroll back up into a neat bundle and setting it aside. He then turned back to her and let his fingers draw light patterns on the skin of her knee.

“I don’t like this.”

“To be honest, I don’t think you’re supposed to.” Robin tilted his head. “You need it though.”

“Says you.”

“Says I.” He agreed easily. He was quick to do that when it involved him being right. He was going to be _insufferable._                      

“How do you get out of it?” She glanced at him. “When you want out, how will you get that thing to let you go?” She nodded to the cuff which was a perfect circlet of silver with no break in it so that he might work it off his wrist without the intervention of a saw.

Robin looked down at the cuff, tracing his fingers over the design and hunched his shoulders in a shrug.

“I don’t.”

She frowned and sat up straighter. He spoke before she could lose her mind.

“Being a consort does not mean that I am glued to your side or that I must forever warm your bed. It simply means that I can…get through to you. Even if you are livid with rage or suffering the depths of despair you will _hear me_. It means I am to be your friend, Regina, I promise you. This is a promise, _I_ am a promise.” He flicked his fingernail against the cuff with a ringing sound. “I’m going to be your friend, Regina, and I shall never stop wishing to be so.”

“Shows how little you know me.” She grumbled.

“Or perhaps it shows how much I know you need a friend.” He gathered his legs beneath himself and then reversed off the bed, pulling her with him with his hands in hers. “Now, you really are filthy and –whilst I enjoy the idea of my scent being embedded in your skin- I think you’ll feel a lot more charitable to me once you are clean and fed.”

Regina warily followed him but didn’t say anything.

Alright, she’d try this nonsense out and –if she grew tired of him- she’d get rid of him. Remove that cuff from his arm by whatever force she so chose.

Yes. That seemed like a plan.

Unfortunately for her, Robin – _insufferable man-_ proved to have an annoying habit of being right.

She _did_ feel better after a bath and the biggest breakfast she’d ever had.

She did need someone that could get through to her.

She did need someone that respected her.

And, alright, having great sex on tap was something she didn’t want to live without either.

Still, she had no desire to be tricked again and –when she posited the ban on masquerades- a furiously blushing Snow and Charming hadn’t given even a token protest.

As Regina understood it, the conception of their future child had been something of a public affair.

The thought made her laugh often.

**Author's Note:**

> So, I love the psychology of masks. A fascination which started for me when I was forced to read Lord of the Flies when I was twelve in English class. It wasn't until much later and another English teacher that specialised in middle aged literature and had no respect for age appropriate reading materials (have any of you ever actually READ Chaucer?) that I realised that masquerades were banned because they pretty much always devolved into full on orgies with very little prompting wherein masks were the only things worn. 
> 
> Hope you enjoyed.


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